Hundreds of enhancements, many of them user-requested features, have been made to this latest release, including significant additions to AWR’s unique and powerful EM technologies, most notably AXIEM’s improved shape pre-processing (SPP) algorithms and Analyst’s support for conducting substrates and anisotropic materials. In addition, the linear simulator when used with extraction within Microwave Office delivers significant speed improvements when optimization and/or yield analysis is invoked.

Dr. Jaakko Juntunen shows how shape modifiers can be utilized in Analyst to create a parameterized EM problem. Moreover, when the model is used in circuit design, the EM results are interpolated, enabling an incredibly fast yield analysis and optimization with the full EM accuracy.

Dr. Mark Pierpoint delivers the IMS2012 MicroApps Keynote address:
As global competition increases, the need to produce the next state-of-the-art product faster has driven changes in how EDA and test instrumentation work together. Gone are the days when a design could be thrown over the wall to production. The next generation of communications protocols have barely been labeled "standards" when products using them have hit the streets. To produce better communications products faster requires that the line between EDA and test be blurred and new synergies between them created...

The problem comes in when you are not a software-centric company. The 2012 UBM Embedded Market Survey showed that, for the first time, QA engineers are becoming a significant portion of embedded software teams, and while the quality of debugging tools is still the top area for improvement, engineers seem to be getting more confident with what is available. However...